was one of the red threads in the jubilee publication here to Ridinger’s 300^th birthday on the contemporary’s Mellin lasting “Attempt of an Instruction for the Design … of the Hunting-Grounds” undertaken 226 years ago, not least, exactly, thanks to a Ridinger blood hound which is “just as indispensable (as the leader described before) when he has to stalk for game”.

And as in the year now running out the ridinger gallery was increasingly asked for copyrights from the master’s œuvre also by rather remote circles of interest – so e.g. by an English university professor for his work forthcoming in an American university publishing house “to document the art to play with the one hand the ‘Trompe Dauphine’ or ‘Cor Dampierre’ and by the other to control the horse” by the Par-force Hunter with the Pack (Th. 115) from the set of Falconers , a Bavarian spa to remind in woody heights at its cableway station of previous co-hunters becoming topical again by placarding the original drawing to the Wolf Pit Th. 41 of the Princely Hunting Pleasures , in America to use the same drawing for illustration of a translation of Löns’ “Warwolf” or elsewhere to enhance commodity labels by stag + boar – so all these are good market signs for a quite agreeable development of the degree of familiarity with the brand Ridinger.

But also with political contemporary events the master proved himself à jour by bringing up again statements seeming oh so far off as we believe to have heard only the other day from another mouth. Just like that

“ All optimism cannot alter that without regard to special interests there must be proceeded to reforms … It is neither about the question if it shall be governed right or left, what matters is that there cannot be neither a right nor a left coalition without co-operation of the middle-class center ” (one earlier Koch-Weser from the State Party) ;

“ The German Reich … is in the process of a financial development since years that must lead to the abyss if there is not coming a big financial reform. Since years the German people has lived beyond its means … Also in Bavaria we are having a crises ” (Dr. Held of the Bavarian People’s Party);

“ The private industry cannot be brought into line with socialist social policy and tax policy. It is imperative to restore the trust in administration and Reich. In future public life should be ruled more than ever by the Christian spirit, not the new paganism ” (the Reich’s Minister for Labor Stegewald from the Center Party) .

And former Minister of the Reich Dr. Scholz from the German People’s Party said the same thing on “a new particularism” in which

“ even with the stagecoach one cannot travel one day without being held up by tollbars and encountering passport troubles ”.

Analogously meant for the fragmentation of German parties. Transferred to the present it could also aim at the omnipresently spreading cancerous ulcer of toll procedures for which even newspaper makers carry the banner ahead who consider themselves smart heads though increasingly carrying wooden stuff on their shoulders, insensitive for the beauty of freedom as such and therefore then, too, of travelling on roads paid for by themselves since long and continuously daily anew.

The small collection above taken from the column “From the Election Campaign” of the Würzburg General=Anzeiger of September 3, 1930, unearthed 75 years later on the occasion of cataloguing of fine Ridingers with Castell provenance bought in just that year to augment – then as today – that pleasure carried by inner freedom which accompanies the bringing together of art.

In this sense a quite enjoyable Christmas tide full of harmony and leisure for the collection. And all the best for the new year, health and happiness throughout, a plenty of fine hours and chances for delighting stalking and fortunate hunting down of some tempting item, of whatever kind.